If you’re a genealogist, then the Internet is truly your playground. There is an absolute wealth of information on the Web and most of it is completely free. You just have to know where to look. Here are just a few of my favorite sites that you may not know about. I’ve tried to stay away from all of the obvious sites that I think everyone already knows about (with the exception of Rootsweb as it definitely bears repeating!) Hopefully you’ll find some new places to do your hunting!

Rootsweb - Owned by Ancestry.com. Rootsweb is one of the largest, free genealogy sites on the Internet. If you find the site a little too overwhelming, then skip to Rootsweb WorldConnect Project at: http://worldconnect.rootsweb.com. Begin by keying in the name of one of your ancestors and see what happens. It’s likely you’ll receive hundreds of results. You will have the option to narrow the search results down by entering in any other information you might have. Be warned that most of this information is unchecked and should only be used as a guideline, but it can open lots of doors and even better, along with the information is the email address of its submitter, so you can even meet distant relatives. http://www.rootsweb.com

The official web site of the Harold B. Lee Library at Brigham Young University. This is an amazing resource. There are thousands of files, including entire books, which you can download as PDF files. While it includes the diaries and journals of many members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, there are just as many biographies and journals of people of other religions and all walks of life. Also, if you have ancestors from Idaho, there is an extensive collection of vital records and Eastern Idaho history. http://abish.byui.edu/specialCollections/index.cfm

http://patriot.lib.byu.edu/cdm4/search.php

Ohio River Valley Families. Start with the ORVF Master Index to begin your Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, West Virginia and Illinois genealogy research. Once you find your family, there is a small fee to join the site, but it’s so nominal for the amount of information they have available. Plus, as a member, you’ll also be able to download GEDCOM files on your ancestors. http://orvf.com/index2.html

The Virginians. Dr. William McCaddin Pritchett has built a wonderful site for anyone with ancestors in Virginia. It includes pedigree charts, wills and personal histories of thousands of Southside Virginia families. Everything is perfectly documented with detailed source information. http://www.virginians.com/index.htm

Colonial Ancestors Database. Includes Genealogy information and documents about ancestors in the thirteen original colonies. If you have Colonial Ancestors, this is a great site for you! http://www.colonialancestors.com/

Scotland’s People. If you have Scottish ancestry, you will love this site. There are more
than 50 million records available. You’ll be able to view the actual images of birth, death and marriage records. You’ll need to register but registration is free. This is such an amazing resource! http://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk

I am certain of only one thing - there are more than there used to be and that is good for all of us. There are a lot of resources being applied to making a lot more information available. There are companies like Footnote (www.footnote.com) that are making some great historical and genealogical information available. They are using some really fun technology that allows the user to tag or transcribe images on the site and make that information searchable and usable by others. To me, the more people that work together on finding out about their ancestors and understanding the writing and records that have been left the better it gets for everyone. Footnote does cost money to use all the features but there is a lot you can do for free.

There are other start ups like Geni (www.geni.com) that allow you to enter your family history information and link to others information that have entered their family history. The site has grown leaps and bounds in a short time just because it is simple and engaging. The ideas are not all new they are just presented with some interesting twists that invite more people to come and use them. Geni is also free which makes it easy to invite others to come and help and work with you.

The older sites like Ancestry continue to do some great things as well. I love the shaking leaf in the personal trees. You can enter your relative’s information and the system will search for possible matches. The matches can be from others trees as well as original records. For example I entered my GrandFather’s name one day and when I came back the leaf was shaking. I clicked on the leaf and there were about 6 possible matches including a Family Tree entry, 3 Census, and a death Certificate. Not all of them were my guy but more than one was. That was very cool.

Others like FamilySearch.org have several things they have been working on. Some of the new things you can see on http://Labs.FamilySearch.org. Others you will have to wait a little longer to see but there is a lot coming from FamilySearch as well.

I will talk about more of these new web places on another day. Best wishes on your Family History work.

I was writing a response to a question and thought you may be able to use this as well.

What is a GSU or DGS number and should I care?

I was recently asked about this and thought it would be good to share in case others had similar questions as they looked at sources and citations for their ancestors.

You asked what each of the following mean and I have provided some description as follows:

GSU number = The identification assigned to a roll of film that was captured by the Genealogical Society of Utah. This is the number that the Family History Library and the associated catalog refer to as an identifier for a portion of a collection and this allows the patrons to order and look at rolls of film in the local Family History Centers or at the main library in SLC. For instance if I were looking for records that have been filmed in Iowa I would search the Library Catalog online at FamilySearch.org and determine if there were records from the place and time my ancestors lived in this area. There are 157 titles that cover that location. I found there are many books included in the 157 results in the catalog. If I chose the 1850 Census, which is on film, and I looked at the Film Notes (Upper right Side) I would find that the Film # is 844885 and within the film it should be Item # 4. This is the GSU number for the Iowa 1850 Census. The item # 4 tells me where on the film I s
hould look.

Digital GS number = The same idea but I know the images are digitized and will be available electronically. The file format will be .jpg once it is online. I will be able then to look at this item with a computer and not with a Micro Film Reader as is required for the GSU numbered items. It is more and more common that you will find items that are on Film will also be digitized and thus have both a GSU and a DGS number.

Image number = The unique identifier assigned to an image within a collection. This should be a way to say with some confidence this is my image and if you want to see it go to image number xx. There is some work to do here to make the image number absolute throughout time. Each time a film has to be re-scanned (re-digitized) there is a chance that an image could be missed or a blank one thrown in to cause some or all of the image numbers to be moved by one or two. There are efforts to try to make the possibility of the image number changing go away but it could be with us for a little while.

Good luck on finding your Family in History.